


Vulnerability

by restlessAnatomy



Category: Homestuck
Genre: FTM Dave, M/M, Post-Sburb/Sgrub, Trans Male Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-28
Updated: 2012-05-28
Packaged: 2017-11-06 04:26:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/414677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessAnatomy/pseuds/restlessAnatomy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John develops a crush on his best friend who mistakes it as an insult to his identity. Comes after http://archiveofourown.org/works/410492</p>
            </blockquote>





	Vulnerability

It’s always been the four of them.

Well, not really. But it’s felt like it has been just the four of them since they were kids, that all they needed was each other. Rose was the light in their lives; John was the air that they breathed. Jade made them feel like they were close together, and Dave made sure that time didn’t drive them apart.

They had their guardians, sure, and their perfunctory friends at school. But the most important things were the other Heroes that completed the set of four. They ended the world together, and they created a new one together. All they needed was each other.

It had been hard to adjust, coming out of the game and into their new world- everything was different, and yet, everything was the same. It was the exact same day, the same time, even though it had felt that years had passed. No longer did they have to fear for their lives, no longer did they have to try and wrap their heads around the warped game mechanics, no; all they had to fear for were bad grades, all they had to wrap their heads around were abstract math problems, and their new living situations.

With Mom’s marriage to Dad, she and therefore Rose had moved up to Washington and into a spacious new home- with room out the back to build a laboratory. Not long after, Jade would make her way across the Pacific and into the attic-turned-bedroom, at Dad’s insistence that a young lady could not live by herself on an uninhabited island. Breath, Light and Space were all together again- it was only a matter of Time before Dave and his brother would join them, taking two more of the many bedrooms available.

They grew, they adapted to their new suburban habitat, turned back into regular teenagers. But SBURB was never far from their minds. And they never had to say it aloud, they just knew.

They were Them, after all. Closer than any flesh-and-blood bond.

-

There’s something about him.

How he manages to be two completely different people in the span of one day is one of the most interesting things about him, John thinks. How the moment they set off for school, all emotion is gone from his face and voice. How people practically prostrate themselves before him as some sort of god on a marble pillar of Cool, an unapproachable specter walking the halls of the school. Untouchable. Hushed voices and ardent gazes follow him everywhere he goes, but he turns for none of them.

And he’s _hot_ , too- if the graffiti in the girls’ bathroom reports from Rose are any indication (And John’s pretty sure he saw something about his great ass in one of the boys’ toilet cubicles, too.) Sure, when he had first transferred, he may have gotten a little halfheartedshit for being weedy and androgynous, but that had been before his reputation as a Cool Kid, capital C, capital K, had been secured. At school, he is _Strider_ ; untouchable, unachievable.

But the moment the gates are out of sight and they set off towards home, he transforms back into _Dave_ ; he laughs, he chases after Jade when she steals his backpack, he stumbles over a fallen rock and gets mud all over his front.

At home he’s a dork. He wanders around in an oversized shirt and boxers just because he can, steals all of the pumpkin poptarts and hides them under his bed. He consents to hugs, and shrieks when John jumps up behind him in the kitchen at two in the morning, he sings in the shower and blushes like a virgin stumbling across triple-penetration horse furry porn when he’s caught doing anything vaguely creative. Inexplicably, he does all his exercise in a neon pink-and-blue tracksuit, claiming he’s trying to blind anyone who sees him do so before they have the chance to attack him in a blind, primal show of lust. (Everyone knows he just likes how ridiculous he looks) Sometimes the four of them discuss what the people at school would think if they saw their coveted Dave Strider fighting over the last bits of food at dinner and farting on people. 

He’s much more open at home, and with more things than just feelings- he’s had numerous animated conversations with Jade about whose butt is better, Justin Timberlake’s or Daniel Radcliffe’s. He responds to Bro’s playful digs at his worship of Benedict Cumberbatch with digs about being nearly forty and still peddling dirty puppet videos, telling him to consider which one is lamer. He usually gets a brand new sword scar from this, but he swears it’s worth it. And sometimes, if he’s in the right mood or someone looks like they really need it, he’ll take part in a feelings jam. Somehow, even if he’s blunt and brutally honest, he manages to help immeasurably. 

John’s favorite Dave is the weekends-at-home Dave. He doesn’t bother straightening his hair, so it goes wavy and almost curly at the ends. He doesn’t bother dressing nicely unless he’s going out, so he usually just stays in pyjama pants and an old stained shirt with “push button: receive bacon” on the front. He drinks juice straight out of the bottle, and lays around on the couch being a useless piece of shit and playing video games all day. Anyone from school would have a heart attack, seeing the transcendent Dave Strider like this, but to John it’s adorable.

Maybe a little too adorable for a straight male to feel about his male friend.

Sometimes John thinks he notices too much about Dave, how his lips have the tiniest upward curve even when he’s pokerfacing to the extreme, and the tiniest pink tint to them. How the softness of his cheeks contrasts to his unusually sharp jaw and bony, jutting-out shoulders and collarbones. How his butt looks pre-tty damn nice in tight jeans.

Wait, what?

John fumbles the combo he’d been setting up in Street Fighter 2, mind anywhere but the nearly-won battle with the PC player. One, two, three hits and he’s dead, but he doesn’t care about that right now. Was he thinking about his best friend’s butt?

Yeah, he was definitely thinking about his best friend’s butt. He hits pause, slinging his arms over the back of the couch as he thought. Well, he wasn’t one to deny that Dave was a particularly attractive fellow. Everyone who knew him was aware of that! Even if they didn’t know how big of a dork he was in the confines of his own home. But now that he’d started thinking about it, he couldn’t stop- it was a pretty nice butt, after all.

He frowns.

If he’s really honest with himself, he admits that he has, lately, been reconsidering the statement he made all those years ago to Karkat about not being a homosexual. Well! He still doesn’t feel like he is one. He still gets kind of hot under the collar when Eva Mendes looks particularly nice in Ghost Rider. But that was years ago, and what thirteen-year-old is positive about their sexuality? Guys aren’t that bad to look at, he’s noticed. Even if he does not want to kiss every- or really, any –attractive guy he sees, he has to admit that sometimes they are kind of enjoyable to ogle.

Would he want to kiss Dave, though?

His brow knits as this thought crosses his mind, his lips pursed in concentration. He closes his eyes and imagines giving Dave a big hug, cupping his cheek and angling his head upwards, touching his lips to Dave’s. He gets a fluttery feeling in his stomach, thinking for a brief second that he might not mind that very much at all.

Well, that was new. He sits there for a few seconds as he mulls over this Shocking Revelation about himself, before he shrugs and reaches for the controller again. So he thought his best friend was hot and maybe fancied him a little! Big deal. Who cares?

Jade chooses this moment to wander past, and stops when she sees John spacing out at the wall, leaning over the couch. “Earth to Jooohn, come in John!” She giggles, nudging him playfully in the side. John mostly-fake yelps, turning to face her. “What are you thinking about?”

“Butts,” John replies truthfully, with a mysterious grin. Jade snorts, nudging him again, and hops over the back of the couch to watch him play. He takes the hint and starts beating the crap out of his opponent once more. “Hey, Jade?” He says after a few minutes of silence, over the low volume of the punches and groans coming from his own guy. Damn he was getting his ass handed to him.

“Yeah?” She says distractedly, eyes still on the screen.

“If you thought a friend- like, a friend who’s the same gender as you -was kinda… y’know, attractive,” He replies, after looking around behind him for any signs of either Striders, “would you think that’s weird?”

Jade shakes her head immediately, looking over at him from the corners of her eyes. “Nope! You like who you like, you can’t help that.” She nods sagely as she says this, and then points towards the screen. “You’re about to die, by the way.”

“Shit, you’re right. And, um, heh. Thanks.” He shifts his focus back to the TV screen, completely missing the knowing grin on his ectosister’s face.

-

“God, my ass is sore.”

“I bet it’s gonna bruise. Heh, try explaining that in gym.”

Dave gives him a look over the top of his sunshades that plainly states that he thinks John’s being a moron. “Because I’m totally going to take my briefs off and flash everyone my ass on Tuesday.”

“You’re an exhibitionist at heart, Dave, don’t lie. You want to show everyone your ass.” John shuffles so he’s sitting more solidly against the back of Dave’s bed, balancing his laptop on his knees. “What did you want the floor to be again?”

“Make it Obsidian, looks nicest with the texture pack I’ve got.”

The two of them were doing their thing (this thing being avoiding schoolwork, naturally) in Dave’s room, John making a castle for Dave in Minecraft (because he was too fucking lazy to do it himself) and Dave, inexplicably, painting macaroni elbows silver (for some art project, apparently). John’s legs are stretched over Dave’s body, his calves pressing comfortingly against his hip. Dave is lying on his front, as sitting hurts too much right now.

“How long is it going to take to work?” John asks, out of the blue. Dave pushes himself up onto his elbows, looking over his shoulder at the younger boy. “I mean, I know your voice is going to get deeper and stuff, but how long will that take?”

“…A few months, probably. You know, Google exists for a reason.” He raises an eyebrow at John, smirk tugging at the corner of his lips in a way that shows he doesn’t really mind being asked. John tuts at this, rolling his eyes dramatically.

“Yes, I know! But I would rather ask you, you are an expert. And…” He trails off, before plowing on recklessly. “I want to be able to know what to expect. So I can support you and stuff.”

Dave stares at him like an alien.

He’s always been of two minds about John being so… earnestly supportive of him. On the one hand, it’s nice- he knows that he’s always there to listen, even if he can’t empathize, he’ll always be there with a comforting hand on his shoulder and his own shoulder to cry on. He’s known for years now, and even though he was a little confused about it at first, he treats it like it’s just as much a part of Dave as the tiny mole on his neck that looks more like a freckle. Like it doesn’t really matter, that all that matters is that he’s Dave.

But on the other hand, it’s… he can’t put it into words. Like he’s maybe too interested? Is that even a thing he can be uncomfortable about? Or maybe that he’s so earnest, so selfless in his desire to know more. It’s weird that a person has the capacity to care that much.

He clears his throat quietly, letting his voice inch back upward in pitch. John is the only one aside from Bro that he feels comfortable using his undisguised voice around, because he’s never commented on it. Not once. “Shit, let’s be a mentor. What’d you wanna know?” He wants to roll onto his back so he can look John in the eye, but that’d probably hurt his ass more.

John frowns, concentrating fully on the screen, taking a few seconds to register the question. “Die- _leave me alone_ for fuck’s!- oh! Uh. Hm. What’s going to happen aside from your voice breaking?”

Dave’s response is almost automatic- forget about school notes, he’s literally got this shit memorized so well he could recite it in his sleep. “Gonna be able to build muscle better, eventually in a year or two.. more maybe? I’m gonna get all hirsute-“

“What?”

“Hairy, John, like a gorilla. Okay maybe not like a gorilla, Bro ain’t that hairy himself. More so than I am now is what I’m getting at.” He watches helplessly as a glob of silver plops onto the carpet. Oh well. Not like he liked the shitty carpet in the first place. “There’re other changes too, mostly below the belt so I’m not gonna go into that.”

“What, like you’ll sprout a—“ He cuts himself off, and Dave just knows he’s wearing that look like a puppy that was caught taking a shit on his owner’s freshly dry-cleaned suit. Tough luck little buddy, gonna rub your nose in it anyway, look as cute as you want.

“Christ, John, it’s alright. I’m not going to bite your head off. Nah, just… certain things will… actually, if you wanna know, Google it. I am not going into detail about my junk. “

John chuckles, sensing that now is the time to stop asking about that particular thing. “Alright, I’ll do that later.” Quiet spreads over them, comforting, heavy and warm, like a blanket. They don’t need to fill the air with pointless chatter to enjoy their company, all they need to do is just be in the same room and breathe. Eventually something billows up inside John, pressing at lungs and drawing his eyes to the back of the blonde head of his best friend until he speaks. “Hey, Dave?”

Dave’s head twitches a miniscule amount, as though he’ll turn around. “Yeah?”

“I’m really happy and excited for you, that you’re starting this. And I’m gonna be here for you all the way through it, too, if it’s hard or… whatever. Just throwing that out there. “ He grins, kind of sheepishly, and returns to his game. Jeez, all these spiders all over him! He’s going to- yup, he’s dead. “Damn, I’d just got some diamond, too…”

Dave squirms beneath him, something hot stabbing in his gut and guilt rising in his throat, though a smile graces his lips. “Thanks.” He says simply, wanting to say more, like how much his support and friendship meant to him, but nothing comes out. “I know.”

The warm blanket feeling returns, lulling them back into an easy silence.

-

The trouble is though, that fluttery feeling doesn’t seem to go away.

In fact, all it seems to do is intensify over time. When he sees Dave in the mornings at breakfast, his heart beats just that little bit faster, and his stomach feels like it’s full of butterflies when he playfully nudges his foot under the table.

When they’re at school and in class and Dave passes him a note under the desk about how fucking boring the lesson is, and scrawls something about going to the movies after school and throwing popcorn at the obnoxious members of the audience, he has to clench his teeth so he doesn’t grin too wide.

He finds that he doesn’t really want to let go too easy, when they hug.

What’s better- worse? He can’t really tell –is that he sees these little signs of Dave liking him more than just another bro everywhere. Just little things, really; how his voice fills with emotion whenever he’s talking to or about him, the little curve of his mouth when he catches John staring at him. How he sometimes brings home a mint-caramel-mocha monstrosity (John’s favorite, for some inexplicable reason) when he returns from work, just for John, for no good reason, how he listens to John’s long-winded rants without a word of complaint and interest on his face… He could go on forever.

But all those things could just be him being a Good Friend! And nothing more. Though sometimes, he thinks he catches a hint of longing in Dave’s eyes on the rare occasions he catches a glimpse of them, but he looks away too quickly for John to discern what it means. And sometimes his hugs linger on just a fraction of a second too long.

He decides, in the middle of the night, as he stares up at the ceiling and maps the cracks in the plaster, that he’ll take a chance on it. Their relationship as friends is strong enough to recover if Dave doesn’t like him like that, he’s certain of it. Their bond is deeper than silly teenage crushes, and will survive if he does something stupid.

It ends up being stupider than he anticipates.

It’s been several months now since John’s little realization, and it’s gotten nearly unbearable lately. The tension that may all just be in John’s head has been as thick as it ever has lately, to the point that Rose and Jade were giving them weird looks- well. Weirder looks than normal, anyway. He’s not sure if it was because John was sitting half in Dave’s lap the other night to watch a movie, or because Dave had sat in the bathroom because John was too afraid to shower after the movie.

There had been a Moment just before they had departed for their separate rooms, where John had mumbled goodnight and patted his shoulder affectionately, grinning his thanks up at him. He had gone to turn and make his way into his room when Dave wrapped his arms around him tightly and pulled him to his chest, holding him there, his face buried in his still damp hair. John’s arms had hung limply at his sides before wrapping them around his waist, exhaling softly.

They’d stayed like that for a good five minutes, until John moved back just far enough to look up at him. Dave had met his gaze, eyes uncovered in the low light-

And he’d tilted his head slightly to the side and down-

And then he’d stopped, eyes going wide and something behind them lighting up, giving him a deer-in-headlights expression.

“Um.” He blinked a few times, looking like a dog that had been pulled out of water when he shook his head to clear it. “It’s gettin’ late.”

“Yeah. Um.” John took his arms back from around him and walked backwards into his room, waving awkwardly with a grin. “Night?”

He’d spent the entire night mentally cursing himself for not leaning up and kissing him when he’d had the chance.

“Penny for your thoughts?” Dave says, in the present, snapping John out of his trance. “Don’t fall out, fucknuts.”

“Jeez, dude, I was just thinking.” John throws a leaf at him, shifting subtly so that the knot sticking up beneath him wasn’t pressing quite so uncomfortably into his ass.

“Mmm?” Dave leans back into the fork, picking up another stick.

It’s the day before Dave goes away for a fortnight, on the annual band camp to the next town over.The two of them are sitting high up in the tree in the backyard, systematically breaking apart leaves and twigs that they find in the recesses of the tree.

“Just…” He trails off, snapping a twig in half with his hand. Every time that John remembers that he’s leaving, something tugs at his heart, something desperate that whispers in his ear that this is the last time he’ll see Dave for an entire fortnight, the longest time he could bear to be apart from him. And right now he didn’t even think he could bear that long. “I’m really going to miss you while you’re gone.” He says finally, looking anywhere but Dave as he says this.

Dave damn near falls out of the tree when he hears that, jumping so hard he dislodges himself from the fork. “Fuck!” He shrieks, his voice cracking as he does so. John swears and grabs one of his flailing hands, yanking him so hard that Dave slams into him and clings tight, swearing again. John can sort-of feel his heart racing underneath the bindings.

When Dave’s calmed down a litte, he doesn’t let go completely, only loosening his grip on John. “Thanks.” He mumbles into his shoulder, sounding a little grumpy and a lot adorable.

“Heh, don’t mention it.”

He doesn’t pull back. It might just be John’s imagination but he swears his heart rate hasn’t slowed down a bit. He knows his own is going haywire. He swallows suddenly, a knot tightening in his stomach and his mouth going dry, this is the moment maybe, and when Dave turns to ask him what the matter is he just kind of

grabs his head

and kisses him.

In the split second that Dave doesn’t respond, a fear like John hasn’t felt in years grips him, ice cold and sharp. Was he just reading too much into things? Why would Dave like _him_ of all people, even if he did like guys? What if he was wrong about their friendship being strong enough to survive this?

But then Dave was kissing him back and oh, _oh_ it was wonderful, messy and he was starting to kind of grow stubble so it was itchy and his own teeth got in the way but it was him and Dave kissing _he was being kissed by Dave_ and that thought was enough to make his head go light, even if he was the worst kiss he’d ever had, including the time he kissed Rose’s corpse.

After a few seconds that are both too short and a million years long Dave pulls away, still holding tightly to him.

“I thought you weren’t into guys.” He states, but there’s a question in his voice if you know where to look. John shrugs, flushed to the tips of his ears and grinning.

“I’m still not! But, well, I just thought that- Dave?”

John’s never seen someone’s expression change so rapidly before. In a matter of seconds, the goofy smile spreading across his lips was gone, his eyes dark and eyebrows pinching together in the middle, changing from shock, to betrayal, and finally, to rage. He hears his teeth grit, and Dave pushes him away forcibly, nearly shoving him out of the tree.

“Fuck you. Fuck you.” He spits, like John’s dirt. Less than dirt.

“I- What? What did I say?” John swears he can feel his heart shattering in two, not only from the words he’d just said. Dave clenches his fists and gets to his feet, wrapping one hand around the branch so he could drop safely to the ground. He takes a few steps away from John, ignoring his questions, before he whirls around, dirt crunching beneath his feet.

“My biological fuck-up is _not_ your get-out-of-homosexuality free card, _Egbert_ ,” He snaps, and if John’s heart was broken before, it’s dust now. He hadn’t called him Egbert in years. Not since the game. It was like he couldn’t even bear to say his first name anymore. “Talk to me when you’re no longer a goddamn moron.”

Dave storms into the house, leaving John totally alone. When he goes inside, Dave’s already barricaded himself in his room with music blaring at top volume.

The next morning, he awakens early to try and find him, try and apologize before he leaves, but Rose informs him over her breakfast that he’s already left.

He goes back to his room and locks the door.

-

There is one thing that always works when John is down in the dumps, and that is a long movie marathon with plenty of comfort food within easy reach, and his beloved salamander daughter curled up in his lap. Armed with a stack of movies and a metric fuck-ton of Pringles, cherry cola and homemade cookie dough, he dims the lights in his room and hits play on his laptop.

 _Spy Kids_ is the first to go.

It works for a while, until he gets to the part with the Thumb-Thumbs and remembers the time he’d made Dave watch it with him and Dave had told him about some suggestive Claymation thing Bro had done that involved creatures that looked exactly like the Thumb-Thumbs until he’d begged him to stop.

He hammers at the button on the disk drive like the world will blow up if he doesn’t, shoving a new movie it.

 _Mommie Dearest_ makes him remember the time Dave had burst into his room at 3 AM, whipped cream on his face and shrieking “NO WIRE HANGERS!” just to see how much he could scare John.

 _Zathura_ (which he honestly prefers to Jumanji) just reminds him of how much they had had to depend on one another over the years (and the stretch of time he spent hurtling in space with a feathery version of the guy he was trying to put out of his mind).

 

Even his all-time favorite movie fails, as Cameron Poe’s accent in _Con Air_ just reminds him of Dave’s slight drawl and indignation at how badly Cage had butchered it.

“God dammit!” He shouts, grabbing the DVD case and hurls it at the door, which promptly opens. Rose stands there, dignified and composed, as the faces of Cusack, Cage and Malkovich bounce off her forehead and onto the bedside table. Behind her, Jade stifles a giggle, cheeks puffing out as she tries to maintain a serious expression. “Oh, shit. Um. Sorry, Rose.”

“It’s quite alright.” Rose rubs the reddening mark on her forehead, perching herself at the end of John’s bed and pulling Casey into her lap. Jade quickly follows suit, but she sits right up next to John, cross-legged, and steals one of his Pringles. “Now. What happened?”

John laughs nervously, a low chuckle that’s a far cry from his usual high-pitched giggle. “Happened? I don’t know what gives you the impression that something happened. Nothing has happened. Nope.” How is he meant to explain how badly he fucked up and upset Dave so much when he doesn’t even know what he did?

Jade is not impressed. She steals a few more Pringles, shoving them into her mouth all at the same time, and blows crumbs on John when she speaks. “John, you’re such a bad liar! You’re so obviously upset it is sort of like looking into a very bright light and Dave looked really… really sad, when he was leaving. Sad and angry.”

John swallows, feeling another stab of guilt in his stomach. Those were getting to be common this last day or so. Jade saw him, he might not have told her what had happened but she had seen him and knew how he had been feeling when he’d left, and he’s so desperate for someone to explain what was going on in that impenetrable blonde head of his that he’s spilling the story to both fascinated females on his bed, omitting absolutely nothing.

“…And then he said something along the lines of “my biological fuckup isn’t your get-out-of-homo-free-card” or something like that, and just walked away. I didn’t even… say anything! What does that even _mean_?”

Rose has this look on her face, sort of pinched and lips pursed, like she’s refraining very, very hard from telling John exactly how dumb he’s being. “Isn’t it obvious?” She asks, deadpanning when the other two shake their heads at her. “Of course it’s not. He, ah… believes you are using his biological sex to expunge any guilt about being attracted to another male.”

John frowns. “That is the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Dude, I’ve only been supporting him and telling him it doesn’t matter to me since we were what, twelve? That’s like, more than four years.”

Rose nods, clicking her tongue softly. “Yes. But- what exactly did you two say again?”

“He said, “I thought you weren’t into guys.” And then I said, “I’m still not! But, well, I just thought that-“ and then he interrupted me.”

She nods again, finally relaxing and moving from her poised stature to lean against the wall. “He maybe misconstrued the beginnings of your sentence as you doubting his masculinity. Maybe you caught him at a particularly bad moment?”

“What, so…” Jade chews her lip thoughtfully, trying to make sense of this. “He thinks you only like him because he’s not a real guy?”

John narrows his eyes at her, suddenly wanting to hit her. “No, because he _is_ a real guy, no matter what’s there. You should know better to say something like that!”

Jade blushes when she realizes how bad her word choice had been. “Oh man, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it like that-! It came out wrong! I meant... ”

“Because he doesn’t have a, y’know?” John finishes for her. She just nods, looking sheepishly down at her lap. “Yeah. That doesn’t make him not a real guy, though! But… It’s okay. I won’t tell him you said that, haha. Honestly, I kind of forget sometimes. He’s one of the manliest dudes, it’s so easy to forget he is a little different physically.”

Rose is slowly nodding her head, a strange look peeking through the mask of calm that is never far from her. “When you say something like that,” she says wisely, stealing a Pringle, “It’s hard to believe Dave could think what he did.”

\--

John impatiently waits out the fortnight until Dave comes back, mentally crossing out every day on his calendar. After their little chat wound up and they had finished watching _The Little Mermaid_ (Dave’s favorite movie, for reasons he refused to explain) Jade had shouted at Dave over the phone that he was stupid and moody so loud the rest of the camp probably heard it, finishing it up with this gem:

“And you’re going to come home and you’re going to kiss and stuff and you’ll stop being such a stupid dumb boy about this and _be happy for once_!”

Which upon screaming she promptly slammed the phone down and huffily made her way back to the attic, much to the adults’ combined confusion and amusement. 

The next two weeks pass agonizingly slowly. The day before Dave is due to return home, Dirk comes up behind John while he’s on the couch reading, and startles him by shoving Cal right in front of his face.

“Just keeping you on your toes.” He waves away John’s indignation with his hand, like it’s a particularly stubborn fly. John just huffs at him, red-faced from how loud he had shrieked.

“What do you want?”

“I just wanted to say that you’re a good kid.” He hesitates, before jumping over the back of the couch, slinging his arms over the back and turning his head to face him. John briefly thinks that he’s like an oversized, walking, talking puppy, the way he jumps all over things, before he speaks again. “And even if Dave is being kind of an idiot right now, he’ll come around. We both know that he can be sensitive sometimes.”

John snickers. He’s got that right.

“Just… if anyone is going to be good for him and accept him just as he is, it’s going to be you. And I’m pretty glad it is.” He nods approvingly, and then hops back over the couch again. “Go nuts.” He waves as he departs to some other part of the house. John’s chest tightens with the paternal – broternal? –approval, grinning toothily. Everyone is wishing him luck! This feels great!

All he needs to do now is talk to Dave. His stomach twists with nerves and anticipation at the thought. He’s not sure he can sleep tonight, knowing he’ll be back home at some ridiculous early hour, 5 AM or something. So he gathers up all the coke in the house, all his movies, and again makes a nest in his bed with Casey to kill a few hours. This time it’s better, the mood is lighter. Last time it was a nest of comfort, of necessity; this time it’s one of distraction.

He falls asleep about 1 AM, murmuring into his crumb-dusted pillow about monsters and Daves.

The sound of a car door slamming and quiet voices rouse him at 5.37, and he lays there staring blearily up at the ceiling as he tries to remember what he was so excited about. It’s not until he hears the shuffling of feet across the hall, Dave’s door to his bedroom opening, that he realizes. He springs out of bed, in his too-small blue plaid pyjama pants and too-big T-shirt, bursting into Dave’s room. He had left the door open, an unspoken invitation for John to come in. The door was normally always closed.

He’s already at his computer desk, facing away from the door. The lights are all off, the sun is just starting to rise outside, and John can just barely make out a smear of black against the light yellow-gray blob that is his head- he’s got his shades on. He never has his shades on in his bedroom.

And then it hits John; he feels vulnerable. He is vulnerable. And he knows what’s coming.

“Dave,” John begins, slurring his words in his sleepiness. “You’re an idiot.”

Dave says nothing.

“It’s got _nothing_ to do with your downstairs. How did you even think that? Who’s been there since we were kids, supporting you and letting you cry on my internet shoulder even though I had no idea what it’s like to be in your shoes?”

“You.” Dave croaks, not turning around.

“Exactly. Who bought your first proper packer even though I nearly exploded when Dad asked me why I was buying a rubber penis?”

“You.”

“And who’s been telling you for years that it doesn’t matter to me, all that matters to me is that you’re Dave and that you’re my best friend, no matter what’s in your pants? Me. I like you, I _like_ -like you because you’re _you_ , Dave. Because you’re kind of stupid in the most endearing way and because of how you’re kind of a dork at home, because you’re a really nice guy and awesome to be around and because I know I can depend on you no matter what… I could go on for hours, Dave, I’m going to go on for hours, please stop me.”

Finally, finally, Dave spins around in his chair. His shades are still on, and with his vision currently blurred up, to John, it looks like he has two big holes in his head instead of eyes. He stands up, walking deliberately slowly up to John, until the tips of their toes are just barely touching. He takes his shades off equally as slowly, if not more so. John wonders why for a second, stomach tensing up as he tries to figure out why Dave hasn’t said anything yet until he remembers; he’s vulnerable. He’s making himself vulnerable by taking his shades off, looking him dead in the eyes. And he’s scared, because he’s never put himself entirely in someone’s hands before, gave them the choice of whether or not to break him.

“I like you too.” He says simply, frankly. John reaches up on his tiptoes to kiss him, both loving and feeling an ache in his chest at how fragile it seemed.

Eventually they break apart and just stand there, hugging. John feels the small softness of his chest and a glance to his bed tells him that his binder is off- another way of Dave making himself vulnerable for John, to show him how much he trusted him. His heart sings.

“You know,” Dave says when the sun’s completely up, “for a guy who identifies as straight, you sounded really gay just now.”

“This coming from the big Kahuna of heterosexuality himself, Mr. David Cumberbatch.” John chuckles. “Also, you have a really nice butt.” 

Dave laughs into his shoulder, his arms falling down around his waist. “Gaaay.” He punctuates this with a kiss to the side of John’s head.

He could get used to this.


End file.
